South Africa has faced many downturns in the past 20 years with the latest being COVID-19. Several GDP forecasts for 2020 have indicated a contraction of the South African economy ranging from 5% to as much as 23.5%. Certain industries will be more severely affected than others. These include the tourism, hospitality and entertainment industries that have been unable to operate under lockdown restrictions.
In this article we explore the impact of COVID-19 on the financial markets, for both developing and emerging markets. We discuss the reaction of the equity market, bond yields, foreign exchange, commodities and credit spreads respectively.